STANFORD, Calif. — Midway through the second half of the Arizona Wildcats’ biggest blowout win of the season Sunday, a brave soul among the 2,000 or so home-team fans at Maples Pavilion started a “Let’s Go Stanford” chant.
It was quickly drowned out by a giddy, almost Mc- Kale-like “U of A” cheer, mirroring exactly what was happening on the court in UA’s 91-52 drubbing of Stanford.
Many times when the Cardinal tried to get the ball in to standout forward Reid Travis, or get up a 3-point shot on Sunday, they were silenced.
The Wildcats shot 62.5 percent from the floor, made 10 of 14 3-pointers, hit 21 of 23 free throws — and kept Travis to 11 points on 5-for-12 shooting a day after UA coach Sean Miller called him a “no-brainer” pick for the all-Pac-12 team.
Basically, the Wildcats were efficient, ruthlessly efficient.
“Coach told us to go inside-out,” guard Rawle Alkins said. “The game plan was to feed the bigs, and they shot 80 percent from the field.”
Simple, right? Just feed the ball to Lauri Markkanen — who scored 15 points while taking just four field goals. Feed the ball to Dusan Ristic — who had 16 on 7-for-10 shooting. And feed it to sophomore Chance Comanche, who had his first career double-double of 13 points and 10 rebounds.
“We have a talented front line and a couple of them are younger,” Miller said. “Their continued development, along with Dusan, especially on offense, has been good. The production from them gives us a lot of firepower.”
The Wildcats first turned to Ristic, who went 3 for 3 over the first four minutes, while Alkins hit all four free throws he took over the same span. That helped give UA early leads of 12-4 and 17-6, and while Stanford came back with a 9-0 run that made it 17-15, the Cardinal never came any closer.
Alkins hit a pair of 3-pointers after the Cardinal cut the lead to a basket, while Markkanen made another and it was 26-17 by the midway point of the first half.
It was 49-30 at halftime and, well, just a bunch of U of A chants in the second.
The win moved the Wildcats to 13-2 overall and 2-0 in Pac-12 play heading into a home game Thursday against Utah. Stanford dropped to 8-6 and 0-2.
Alkins joined the bigs in offensive firepower by tying his season-high in scoring with 19 points while going 4 for 7 from the field and making all eight free throws he took, and Kobi Simmons scored 15 points on 6-for-10 shooting.
All that shooting was, perhaps, a reward for having to hop on planes Christmas morning in order to attend the Wildcats’ first post-break workout on Christmas night, when they mostly put up shots.
A lot of shots.
“Me, Kadeem, Kobi, we all sacrificed,” Alkins said. “We came here on Christmas Day. No one really wanted to come back on Christmas. We wanted to be with our families on Christmas.”
But it wasn’t just shooting inside or out that did it for the Wildcats. While they struggled with 19 turnovers, they also defended, holding Stanford to just 33.9 percent shooting and the Cardinal made only 3 of 16 3-pointers.
UA also beat up Stanford on the glass, outrebounding the Caedinal 38-24.
“There was a lot that went wrong in this game,” Travis said. “I felt like I let defense affect my offense and that took me out of my game.”
Travis’ struggles were understandable. He was a 6-foot-8 guy playing around the basket — while Arizona had two 7-footers and the 6-11 Comanche around to defend him.
“They definitely have a lot of length,” Travis said. “Their length was a little bit of a factor, but for me getting the ball that close, I should have been finishing those.”
While Travis’ play drew a few cheers from Stanford fans, the biggest crowd noise came from the 1,000 or so UA fans, whose presence was even more noticeable than ever in the half-empty Maples Pavilion.
“It’s tough,” Stanford forward Dorian Pickens said. “But their fans travel great.”
Pickens probably knew that much. He’s a former UA recruiting target from Phoenix.
Miller knows the phenomenon even better. He’s lived it for nearly eight years now, since he was hired in 2009.
“I’ve come to expect that from our fans,” Miller said. “Maybe that’s an unfair statement, but every place that we’ve played since I’ve been at Arizona, I always hear ‘U of A.’ We always have a presence.
“That’s what’s so special about playing at Arizona, and being the coach, the support that we have on the road and at home. It gives our guys a lot of confidence.”
